1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to medical devices comprising polymer hydrogels having improved mechanical properties.
2. Description of Related Art
Medical devices adapted for implant into the body to facilitate the flow of bodily fluids, to serve as vascular grafts or for other purposes have been developed. Typically, these devices include stents, catheters or cannulas, plugs, constrictors, tissue or biological encapsulants and the like.
Typically, many of these devices used as implants are made of durable, non-degradable plastic materials such as polyurethanes, polyacrylates, silicone polymers and the like, or more preferably from biodegradable polymers which remain stable in-vivo for a period of time but eventually biodegrade in-vivo into small molecules which are removed by the body by normal elimination in the urine or feces.
Typical of such biodegradable polymers are polyesters, polyanhydrides and polyorthoesters which undergo hydrolytic chain cleavage, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,085,629; crosslinked polysaccharide hydrogel polymers as disclosed in EPA 0507604 A-2 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,057,606 and other ionically crosslinked hydrogels as disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,941,870, 4,286,341 and 4,878,907.
EPA 0645150 A-1 describes hydrogel medical devices prepared from ionically crosslinked anionic polymers, e.g. polysaccharides such as calcium alginate or ionically crosslinked cationic polymers such as chitosan, cationic guar, cationic starch and polyethylene amine. These devices are adapted for more rapid in-vivo disintegration upon the administration of a chemical trigger material which displaces crosslinking ions.
Hydrogels offer excellent biocompatibility and have been shown to have reduced tendency for inducing thrombosis, encrustation, and inflammation. Unfortunately, the use of hydrogels in biomedical device applications has often been hindered by poor mechanical performance. Although many medical device applications exist where minimal stresses are encountered by the device in-vivo, most applications require that the device survive high stresses during implantation. Hydrogels suffer from low modulus, low yield stress and low strength when compared to non-swollen polymer systems. Lower mechanical properties result from the swollen nature of hydrogels and the non-stress bearing nature of the swelling agent, e.g., aqueous fluids.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art to provide shaped medical devices which not only offer the advantages of polymer hydrogels in terms of biological compatibility, but which also have improved mechanical properties, e.g. improved strength and modulus properties, such that they retain their shape and stiffness during insertion into the body, such as by delivery through an endoscope, and which also can swell and soften inside the body to enhance patient comfort.